Another round of hike in Railway passenger fares on the cards

New Delhi: Railway fares could see another round of increase soon. Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal hinted on Thursday that fares could be hiked for the second time in 2013 as the organisation has not been not able to complete several projects due to lack of funds.

The new hike will come after railway tickets became more expensive across board in January after more than a decade. Sources say the second round of hike could be part of the Railway Budget document to be presented on February 26.

Bansal had on January 9, 2013 announced a hike in railway fares, the first in the last 10 years. The new fares became effective from midnight of January 21, 2013. Bansal said that he expected to get Rs 6,600 crore from the hike, keeping into account the incremental traffic volume as well.

The proposals will rake in an additional Rs 1200 crore between January 21 and March 31 2013, the minister said announcing the decision and did not rule out a hike in the freight tariff.

The fare hike also covered services like Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Duronto type trains. However, it exempted platform tickets from any hike. Bansal also proposed to do away with the practice of levying development charge on passenger tickets and all the chargeable fares in future would be in multiples of five.

As a result of the proposed hike, ordinary Second Class suburban fares for a distance of 35 km has gone up by Rs 2 from Rs 8 to Rs 10, while in the non-suburban trains it has gone up by Rs 5 for an average distance of 135 km.

In Sleeper Class, the increase is of Rs 50 for a distance of 770 km from Rs 270 to Rs 320. In the case of AC Chair Car, for a distance of 387 km, the increase is Rs 40 from Rs 345 to Rs 385. In the case of AC Three Tier, for a distance of 717 km, the fare have gone up from Rs 724 to Rs 800, an increase of Rs 76.

Similarly, in the case of AC Two Tier, the increase means a hike of Rs 48 for a distance of 721 km, while for AC First Class it has been Rs 56 for a distance of 547 km.